Chimney Repair in Metuchen, NJ
Woodbridge Chimney Repair is a chimney repair company working in Metuchen, NJ, one of the towns we serve around Woodbridge. Sweeps, liners, leaks, crowns, flashing, repointing, and rebuilds, with the same crew on the roof from start to finish.
Metuchen was incorporated as a borough on March 20, 1900, from part of Raritan Township, now Edison, which surrounds it completely. Its name first appears in 1688 or 1689, Main Street was laid out in 1705, and growth came with the railroad: the New Jersey Railroad reached New Brunswick in 1836, and a station at Main Street made it the principal street. The artists, writers, and intellectuals who arrived in the late 1800s gave it the nickname the Brainy Borough.
Older houses in the Brainy Borough
Metuchen's housing runs older than Edison's around it. The American Community Survey puts the median year built at 1961, against 1975 in Edison, and counts 15 percent of homes as built in 1939 or earlier, more than twice Edison's 6 percent. The Middlesex Avenue-Woodwild Park Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 31, 2017, includes 197 contributing buildings.
Older chimneys reward careful repair. Repointing should use a lime rich mortar softer than the brick, joints should match the existing profile, and replacement brick should blend instead of announcing itself. Some older flues were never lined, and a stainless liner installed from above can make one safe to use without changing its exterior. Gas heats 85 percent of occupied Metuchen homes, so the flue that matters most is often the one serving the furnace or water heater.
Repairs we do in Metuchen
What older Metuchen chimneys tend to need
Loose top courses on older stacks
The top courses of a chimney take more weather than any other masonry on the house. When their joints open, brick there becomes a falling hazard. Relaying them in kind, reusing original brick wherever it is sound, keeps the stack looking as it did.
Several flues in one stack
An older chimney may hold flues for a fireplace and the heating plant, some lined over the years and some never lined at all. Each channel gets its own camera evaluation, because relining only the flue actually in use is often all a careful owner needs.
Brick spalling behind hard patches
Past repairs with hard modern mortar trap moisture inside soft older brick, and the brick faces shear off while the patch holds. Removing rigid patches and repointing with compatible mortar lets the masonry dry the way it was built to.
Metuchen, the Brainy Borough, is completely surrounded by Edison, and its homes run older than Edison's: a median year built of 1961, with 15 percent from 1939 or earlier.
Getting hold of us from Metuchen
Call us at (732) 466-7855 during working hours and you will get one of us, not a dispatcher.
Nearby
Close to Metuchen: chimney repair in Edison and chimney repair in Fords. Every service and town is on the Woodbridge Chimney Repair home page, and flue cleaning has its own page: chimney sweep & cleaning in Woodbridge.